Japan's State of Mind

NY Times had an op-ed the other day with a nice testable hypothesis in poli psy: Japan's Crisis of the Mind.

But what most people don’t recognize is that our crisis is not political, but psychological. After our aggression — and subsequent defeat — in World War II, safety and predictability became society’s goals. Bureaucrats rose to control the details of everyday life. We became a nation with lifetime employment, a corporate system based on stable cross-holdings of shares, and a large middle-class population in which people are equal and alike.

In the West, on the other hand, the idea of progress rests on establishing individual autonomy and liberty. In Japan, bureaucratic rule offered security and predictability — in exchange for personal freedom. The problem is that our current political leaders can’t keep their side of the bargain. Employment security can no longer be guaranteed. The national pension and health plans seem to be insolvent in the long run. People feel both insecure and unfree.

The author goes on to cite various endemic 'signs of despair' such as the distinctly Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori ('shut ins' who stay in their rooms for months or years on end). Or young people who live with their parents well into middle age.

 

Now, I have anecdotal evidence that single people continuing to live with their folks into adulthood is not a uniquely Japanese phenomena, but I don't have hard numbers on that just now. Still, what of the assertion that the Japanese as a whole are more deferential to authority than others?

A little rummaging brought me to a paper from a couple years ago:

 

"Authority Orientations and Democratic Attitudes: A Test of the 'Asian Values' Hypothesis"

 

Essentially, this is a stab at an empirical test of an argument popularized by the father of independent Singapore, former PM Lee Kuan Yew that a Confucian-derived cultural legacy left southeast Asia with a different set of values from the West. In essence, while Asians were more than willing to share a system of market capitalism, the tradition of liberal democracy was a step too far.

 

They look at data from the 4th wave of the World Values Survey that measure deference to authority. They acknowledge the diversity of the region (Indonesia being largely Muslim, Philippines being largely Catholic, etc) and, lest we forget, Sam Huntington (may he find that heaven is predominately populated by those with swarthy complexions) gave Japan their own "civilization", rather than lumping than in with their "Sinic" or "Buddhist" neighbors.

 

The authors find that:

 

Questions regarding one's views about parents (due to a common theory that authoritarian attitudes may be analogous to one's views about the authority of one's parents - Adorno's influential The Authoritarian Personality and Stanley Milgram's experimental work, e.g.). Items included whether one should always respect one's parents despite faults, or whether one's main goals included making one's parents proud.

 

Respect for Parents -

USA: 78%

Canada: 79%

 

Japan: 73%

South Korea and Singapore: 94%

Taiwan: 91%

Vietnam: 99%

 

The WVS also asks about values that parents see as necessary to emphasize to in childrearing, such as  obedience, following the instructions of work superiors even if you disagree, and a desire to see greater respect for authority in society.

 

Here, there is an even more striking difference in values, with 35% of Canadians and 31% of Americans reporting that they saw teaching obedience to children as important, with only 5% of Japanese agreeing. And, regarding work instructions, 58% of Canadians and 66% of Americans agrees, with 29% of Japanese agreeing.

 

They find a cohort effect in these attitudes in southeast Asia. Whereas older Americans tend to share similar values to their grandchildren, older Japanese are much more likely to say they value deference to authority than the young. They argue that stereotypical views of the Japanese are simply not born out by the data:

 

Admittedly, the social traditions in many East Asian nations still place a priority on parents and a sense of duty that is seen as exceptionally strong by Western observers and experts of the region. But social customs are not the same as individual beliefs

 

The young may comply to social norms of conformity, but not truly adhere to them in their minds.